Postal Service Customers as Co-producers

Abstract

The act of writing in the postcode when we are addressing an envelope is hardly a major event in our lives. But each time we do it, we play a small but important part in the performance of the postal service: we are co-producing the sorting of our mail and hence expediting its delivery. The efforts of postal organisations since the 1960s to reduce costs and improve service quality through the introduction of new technology have been reliant, to a significant degree, on how their customers address their letters, especially the postcodes.¹⁰ Consequently, these organisations have sought to influence customers to address their mail in particular ways.